XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Anyone guys?
I would appreciate it if you could share with me how warm the laptop gets on the left side of the top panel as we look at the screen.

I've noticed that my unit gets really warm only when on AC power, especially when the battery is fully charged.

Thanks

 

I just got my laptop!!!

Has anyone found a fix for enlarging the tiny icons when playing YouTube videos???

 

Could anyone tell me how SolidWorks performs on this machine?

 

So there are two basic options. A Windows 8.1 Pro Upgrade, and a Windows 8.1 Pro Pack. The former is probably what you're looking at (and wow, $59 is a great deal!) and would essentially be a standard license to install Windows even from scratch. I don't believe 8.1 technically has Upgrade (as opposed to Full Version) licenses anymore, fyi. But in any case, while that can be used to do a clean install (technically, more on that in a moment), you can't use that to just flip your existing installation over to Pro like you can with a Pro Pack. The catch is that since this system has an 8.1 key embedded into the BIOS, when you go to install Windows 8.1 it will automatically detect that key and proceed with installing non-Pro (since that's what your embedded key is for). There's probably a way to hack installation media to prompt you despite the embedded key, but you may have some trouble there.

The Pro Pack on the other hand does NOT allow you to install 8.1 Pro from scratch (but that's fine, as you'll learn in a moment), but instead you install 8.1 non-Pro using your embedded key and then enter the Pro Pack key as a "feature key". When you do, Windows goes through two regular-length reboots (i.e. no long installs or anything) and presto, you've just been flipped over to Pro in-place. This is what I did. However, the Pro Pack is $99 from Microsoft and $95 from Newegg, so while it's cheaper than a regular 8.1 Pro license, it wouldn't appear to beat the pricing you have access to.

And btw, Hyper-V on this system is just sickeningly, obscenely fast. It has an advantage over, say, VMware Workstation or Microsoft's earlier Virtual PC in that it's a Type 1 hypervisor (Google it). It doesn't hold your hand as much as those other solutions and is missing some of their more fancy host integration features (like USB device redirection into a VM) because Microsoft has literally just dropped their enterprise-level Hyper-V solution and interface into Windows 8.1, so keep that in mind, but it's amazing once you get it running. Also, you may notice that after enabling Hyper-V, Task Manager no longer shows your CPU clock speed dropping to lower levels when idle. Don't worry, it's still doing that in order to save battery life; the reason it doesn't appear to be doing so anymore is because Hyper-V technically abstracts even the host OS from the hardware, so the host OS can't see that going on anymore. For some reason certain apps like CPU-Z still seem to be able to monitor it though; I guess there's more than one way to pull that information.

That's a Flash Player issue, yet another Adobe app that doesn't deal with HiDPI well.... The only workaround at the moment is to force YouTube to use the HTML5 viewer instead.

A few people have posted about this in the thread. Try searching "XPS 15 Haswell Solidworks site:notebookreview.com" in Google.

 

Duplicate post

 

Its the Microsoft - Windows 8 Pro Pack that is being offered so thanks for the clarification.

 

OK couple of "is it just me?" questions:

1, USBs plug in fine, but feel really stiff and slightly scratchy (for want of a better term) to remove. The same applies to the power cable,

2, If you plug your phone or something into a powershare port while the machine is on, putting it to sleep cuts the power to the device. If you unplug and reinsert the USB however, power-share kicks in. Twice now I've left my phone plugged in when I've gone to sleep (and the machine likewise) and woken up to a pretty low battery.

 

If you do find a pro license and try to install it, as mentioned by jp it will default to the embedded key.
To work around this you will need to add a file in the sources folder called ei.cfg .
What this will do is specify the installer to install the pro version (defined in the file. google ei.cfg windows 8 pro). When I installed mine, it had installed the core version and I didn't realise at the time until i started fiddling around, so I created the file and it went to install the pro version by asking for the pro key.
Because you will be installing through usb, the file is easy to put on.

 

Make sure you get the 8.1 Pro Pack, which is separate from and not interchangeable with the 8.0 Pro Pack!

 

Yes, these USB ports are rather tight and "scratchy". I can't think of a better term either, but I know what you mean. Doesn't bother me though. They probably loosen up somewhat over time with devices plugged into them. Definitely better than the alternative of being too loose that I've seen elsewhere though.

PowerShare behavior varies by device. My iPhone and iPad will stop charging for a few seconds after shutdown/sleep but then automatically resume again. I think it's because the devices technically have to negotiate with a new host (different software controller) when setting up with PowerShare, and perhaps some devices won't do that without a disconnect/reconnect. What kind of phone do you have?

 

Called Dell about another MB replacement, but the rep didn't want to send it. They want to take the computer in for servicing. Not really wild about the idea... Probably won't amount to much, sigh.

 

Cool, just wanted to make sure it wasn't a fault with mine. It is making scratch marks on a brand-new USB cable though. Not that I'm particularly bothered considering I've got a pixel perfect screen, no damage, no coilwhine and no hibernation problems

HTC One X, but it's rooted, running CyanogenMod

 

Screen is a bit too glossy for my liking, (coming from a Macbook Retina) I was combing my hair and using the screen as a mirror as I was booting up for the first time.

 

Regarding the screen - anyone notices the right part of the screen is a little yellowish? I didn't notice it with my previous screen, but notice it now with the new one....

 

The rMBP screen is less glossy?

 

Yes, I believe the dell has two layers on it for the touchscreen or Gorilla Glass, and because of that it is adding to the gloss, shine, or mirror. If you look at them side by side you can see an immediate difference. I'll post up pictures myself however in the mean time you can see it in this video. XPS 15 9530 - Quick Compare with Retina MBP - YouTube

The easiest way to see the difference is looking at the two screens when the screens are off or Black. The Dell one is like a mirror when in comparison with the Retina Screen. When you consider I use a Matte screen for work moving to ultra gloss, such as this is straining on the eyes, for me at least...

 

I'd love to see those pictures. I was going to bring my XPS to the apple store to compare them but I thought that would attract too many dirty looks...heh

 

Been following this thread for a while and just got my computer! I noticed that there is a lag when changing screen brightness and the display seems to reach maximum brightness before the computer shows I have reached maximum brightness. The last three levels all seem the same brightness. Anyone with this issue?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

I strongly recommend reading through the XPS 15 Haswell Wiki, which among many other useful bits of information will tell you that the reason for what you're seeing is that adaptive brightness is enabled in your Power Options.

Link: XPS 15 Wiki

 

Wow, that link is amazing! Thank you!

 

I was just browsing the wiki and found a way to activate middle click with

however I can't seem to verify that it works. Has anyone else tried this?

 

That's a shame. Suppose I had 8.0 non-pro installed on a machine, upgraded to 8.0 Pro via 8.0 Pro Pack, and subsequently upgraded to 8.1 Pro via Windows Store. How would I later do a clean install of 8.1 Pro? Ideally, I would install 8.1 non-pro from 8.1 media (using generic 8.1 install key and own 8.0 activation key), then upgrade to 8.1 Pro using 8.0 Pro Pack. But, from the sounds of it, that's not possible?

The reason this concerns me is that I can envision the same scenario going from 8.1 to a hypothetical 8.2 in the future. That is, I buy 8.1 Pro Pack to upgrade to 8.1 Pro for now, but at some later date I may wish to do a clean install of 8.2 Pro.

 

Yeah, you don't want to go down that road for the exact reasons you describe. If all you had was an 8.0 Core key and an 8.0 Pro Pack key, you'd have no way to do a clean install with any version of 8.1. That's a great point about 8.2 though. I hadn't thought about that, and since I have an 8.1 key, I would be in this same boat whenever that came out -- and I hate in-place OS upgrades!

I suppose if you tried the phone activation and explained your situation, you may be able to get some help. Or maybe for 8.2 Microsoft will come to their senses and make the 8.1 Pro Pack keys usable on 8.2 -- but considering that they bothered to create separate 8.1 product keys even though it's a free upgrade from 8.0, I'm not holding my breath there....

 

My wife's XPS 15 got a new mainboard yesterday. With the original mainboard we had frequent blue screens while waking up from hibernation and even a few while booting. We got the blue screens with this XPS 15 right from the start - it happened for the first time just 3 h after delivery. Compared to my XPS 15 my wife's XPS 15 was also quite slow during boot up.

I had analyzed from the crash dumps that the blue screens were caused by the nVidia driver. Changing the driver versions didn't help, so Dell agreed to replace the mainboard (nVidia GT 750M is soldered to the board). That was two weeks ago. Unfortunately they a had a problem getting the mainboard to the service technician, so 'next business day onsite service' meant waiting two weeks.

Nevermind, the technician replaced the board yesterday. He did a good job. As far as I can see the problem has gone and my wife's XPS 15 now works as well as mine did from the start.

Btw, no coil with the new board. Neither mine nor my wife's XPS 15 had a coil whine issue.

 

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share a couple of sleeves I currently have for my XPS 15. They work wonderfully and they're both really nice. It's the Brenthaven Collins Sleeve and the Dell XPS 15 Leather Sleeve. The Brenthaven is a little bit more of a tight fit when you put it in the sleeve, so be careful when you do since there are zippers. The Dell one is really nice as well since you slip it right into the sleeve and close it with the magnetic flap. I was originally going to return the Brenthaven one since I didn't like the zippers, but I realized that it isn't that bad if I'm careful (not just bluntly shoving it into the sleeve) and plus, they were going to charge me for shipping. Might as well keep the sleeve.

Even though Dell's sleeve was more expensive, I had a $15 off coupon for their site, so it ended up being a reasonable buy considering this is a genuine leather product. Check out the pictures below!

 

I've had my eye on the ACME Made sleeves, but it doesn't seem like either would be a perfect fit for the xps15 based on dell's site dimensions and ACME's internal dimensions:
Skinny Sleeve seems a tiny bit too small:
The Skinny Sleeve MacBook - Laptop Cases


Bay Street Sleeve seems like it'd be a tiny bit too loose:
The Bay Street Sleeve for Ultrabook - Laptop Cases

 

I had my eye on those sleeves as well, but I am not entirely convinced about the strap part. It fits perfectly, but I ended up getting the Dell one for its quality. The Brenthaven one was simply because I have a laptop backpack from them, and I wanted to compliment it.
Here's a video of a guy reviewing it for the XPS 15, actually.

 

So your wife's old one had coil whine and the noise went away after replacing motherboard?

 

Got my second XPS 15 today - I liked mine so much I decided to get my son one for college. No QC issues on either of them, so my anecdotal evidence suggests that Dell is getting slightly better at QC over time, or I'm just lucky. Both do have coil whine which is only noticeable when pressing an ear to the keyboard when the fans are off, but I think that's an issue that everyone has. Sadly, my son refuses to accept anything non-mac, so I now get to resell my brand-new laptop that I already bought a year of accidental damage for, but that's life. It's a great laptop nonetheless, but apparently not for mac enthusiasts.

 

It does work. Make sure you have also changed the 3FingerTapPluginActionID to 0 and removed SynTP from 3FingerTapPlugInID. If it still doesn't let us know. I was fighting with this for a while too.

 

Is the coil whine so indistinct also with 100% battery and power plugged in? Because mine is nearly inaudible when the battery is low/charging, but when it hits around 90%, it goes crazy.

 

Refusing anything but a mac. It is not like you give him a cheap 300 $ laptop this is a laptop on par with build quality and materials. I guess image and style this day is everything...

 

No, it only had the nVidia related blue screen problem. With the last sentence I only wanted to say that the new board is also free of coil whine. So far neither the board in my XPS 15 nor the two boards in my wife's XPS 15 had coil whine.

 

Sigh, I envy you. I wonder if it may be because you and your wife don't "hear" this frequency of sound...Units without coil whine seem to be almost a myth or a legend around here.

 

Well, although it is a common issue (the coil whine), it seems like it really differs with everyone. I have heard a hint of this noise, but really faintly and only when I have my charger plugged in.

It's not something you can hear over music or other noises. However, there are other users who have reported a noticeably loud coil whine. I'm still sticking to my motherboard-structure theory. I think the design of the motherboard on this machine is somewhat flawed in a way that causes a coil whine to be heard. I could be entirely wrong, but considering we don't have any direct correlation or evidence, I'm sticking with my assumption.

Thankfully, this coil whine is nothing but a noise as it does not harm the system itself.

 

I would second your opinion. It might also because that the surrounding environment is not quiet enough, thus the coil whine is covered by other noise sources.

PS: I just saw a guy's post on Dell's forum. He suspected that Dell knows the problem, knows how to solve the problem, they just wouldn't admit that they can. Because they would be obliged to swap all the faulty systems that have been sold out so far, which would cost Dell a large fortune.

Personally, I bought this theory because that would explain a lot of things.

 

How do I know if I have the coil whine or not? What do I specifically have to go?

 

Yes, I entirely agree with that suspicion. It would cost Dell a lot. But this isn't the first time where they've come into a situation where they have to admit their systems have faulty hardware. If anyone here recalls, they had to recall a lot of XPS 12 systems because of image retention caused by LG panels. I hate it when companies hide like that in the background and act clueless.

You don't have to really go anywhere on the computer. It's a noise that's coming from the system and many users are getting it in different ways -- some spontaneously out of nowhere, but the most common upbringing of the whine happens when you plug the charger into the notebook. Not entirely everyone is getting the whine, but a majority of users have voiced this fault.

 

Hmm I have all those set but its still not working. Maybe I am missing something?


Thanks!

**It works!! Only as a tap and is really hard to get all three of my fingers to tap at the same time :/ **

 

Can someone suggest a good thermal compound to renew the factory compound on the CPU? I remember jphughan said that Artic Silver Ceramique would work good considering it's not conductive, but neither is the Artic Silver 5 one either. I can't choose which one and I'm actually not entirely sure what the real difference is.

Amazon.com: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound 3.5 Grams: Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com: Arctic Silver Ceramique Premium High Density Thermal Compound 2.57g: Computers & Accessories

 

Well, we are both just over 40 years old. Maybe I don't hear some high frequency any more. But I carry my notebook to work every day. Even my younger collegues (~25-30 years old) didn't hear any noise. The 9530 is the most silent laptop I ever owned. In my normal usage (software development with Visual Studio) the fans are off and the only sound is the clicking of the keyboard.

I'm at home at the moment and the ticking of the clock at the end of the room and the singing of that damn bloody bird outside the closed window is driving me nuts. But I can't hear any coil whine even if I put my ear on the keyboard.

 

Hehe , good to know that it works. I agree with you. It's not ideal... I would have rather have the click version of this instead of a tap but oh well.

 

Well, maybe there are "perfect" units after all

My unit, after one MB and one screen replacement, has "only" the coil whine, a yellowish white on the right side of the screen and a dead pixel in the middle...

Btw. you say the fan rarely turns on? Mine seems to be very "eager" to start, even when I'm doing sth as light as watching a youtube video or running a translation software (Trados Studio). Can anyone confirm whether their fan is silent when performing similar activities?

 

Well, I had my 50-year-old father listen to the "coil whine" and he couldn't hear it or barely heard it when placing his ear against the keyboard, while I could hear it standing meters away. I'm considering sending it away for servicing, but this seriously makes me afraid that an old technicial will simply hear nothing at all...

 

Mine is not perfect - I've got a little dust spot between display and glas, but it's small enough to be ignored. My wife's unit was delivered with the faulty nVidia card, but is now quite perfect.

I can hear the fans only when I run one my programs that performs a numeric simulation (number crunching over all cores with about 80% CPU usage over 5 minutes) or when McAfee does the weekly full scan. I haven't played a game yet. While surfing or watching YouTube it's silent.

 

Yep - it's a much better laptop than any mac except the rMBP15, which it trades blows with. I'm not all that happy with his decision, but I guess image is more important than quality to him. He sure isn't getting a rMBP15. Incidentally, if any new buyers are looking for a max-spec XPS15 with a year of accidental damage protection, send me a message.

Mine is fairly quiet most of the time. I'll check to see if it's any different on a fully charged battery, but I haven't noticed any difference in my usage.

 

I am 25 years old and I cannot understand this logic. Anyway coul you please let your son check for the coil whine. He should be able to hear it if it exists at all.

 

Other than the throttling, I don't have any complaints with mine either. Its perfect.

I found a strange thing yesterday. It was completely quite. I was browsing using Firefox. I noticed a strange kind of noice (similar to electrical interference) coming whenever I scroll the window contents up or down. I muted the speaker, still it was there. I was afraid this was a new issue similar to the coil whine some of you were facing. Luckily, this happens only with Firefox, no sound when I use Chrome or IE.

 

Interesting. Actually, this, I believe, is precisely what we refer to as "coil whine" only in your case it appears only in Firefox. I have a suspicion that Firefox puts strain on some components, i.e. the GPU, so perhaps in your case only the GPU is affected (and obviously it is usually not taxed except in games and movies when such noises would not be audible anyway). That's my theory at least.

 

Wow, sorry to hear such an awesome gift was met with such a lack of enthusiasm. When I read your first post I was prepared to give your son the benefit of the doubt that maybe there was some app he needed for college that would only work on a Mac, but if it really is just an image thing, that's just downright sad that that's enough to motivate him to turn down an XPS 15, particularly a top-spec model. Although it's yet another testament to Apple's marketing and branding prowess....

If you can't get your son to come to his senses (perhaps the prospect of him not getting ANY laptop for college would help there?? ), then if you do end up reselling, assuming you're in the US this is the form you'd want to fill out whenever you make the sale so that the new owner can call Dell for any warranty issues and such: Ownership Transfer | Dell US.